


This Love is Glowing in the Dark

by rememberthismoment



Series: This Love [2]
Category: The Rookie (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, somewhat angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25072837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rememberthismoment/pseuds/rememberthismoment
Summary: Did this happiness belong to her? A bedroom drenched in the rising California sun? Warm bodies entertwined under crisp cotton sheets? The soft rise and fall of his chest and the steady rythm of his heart echoing beneath her ear?She wasn't sure that it did.--set the morning after Lucy shows up at Tim's door in Back To You--
Relationships: Tim Bradford/Lucy Chen
Series: This Love [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1812172
Comments: 10
Kudos: 59





	This Love is Glowing in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> SO, real talk. I posted a piece a few days ago, and decided it wasn't where I wanted it to be, so I took it down to keep tweaking it. In the mean time, I wrote this. It's a lot happier and fluffier, with some angst mixed in. I hope you guys enjoy it! 
> 
> This is post Back to You. The morning after she shows up at Tim's door telling him she broke off the wedding.

Did this happiness belong to her? A bedroom drenched in the rising California sun? Warm bodies entertwined under crisp cotton sheets? The soft rise and fall of his chest and the steady rythm of his heart echoing beneath her ear? 

She wasn't sure that it did. She wasn't sure that she could openly recieve something so beautiful as this very moment. Shouldn't there be some sort of consequence at hand? Shouldn't he have just left her abandoned at his front door? That's what she felt that she deserved. In the wake of the fevered kiss that made her see stars and everything else that felt so right in the moment, she awoke that next morning with shame and guilt.

It had been a week and five days since she had broken things off with Emmet, but she could still hear his splintered voice in the quiet moments of her day. When she lay her head down at night and closed her eyes, she could see his face when she placed the engagment ring into the palm of his hand. The scene replayed over and over in her sleep, and the yelling and crying between the two had now become her internal alarm clock.

She reached down and ran her fingers along the place where her engagement ring once sat. It seemed selfish to completely throw someone's world off it's axis, and watch hers fall into place as a result. She should know. She had been on the other side before. 

_Bzzz. Beep, beep, beep. Bzzz. Beep, beep, beep._

The sound of his phone alarm startled her from her thoughts. She jumped. Kojo barked. He stirred and started blindly reaching his hand towards his nightstand to press snooze. 

"Tim," she groaned, and burrowed her head into his chest. His hand hit everything but his phone, his chapstick and watch tumbling to the floor. "You're kidding, right?"

"Shhhh." His hand that was wrapped around her shoulder started patting her face in an attempt to quiet her. The alarm increased in volume in the background. "I got it. I promise." 

She rolled her eyes, he finally found the snooze button, and Kojo huffed loudly from his bed on the ground. 

For as routine oriented as he was in almost every aspect of his life, the man was not a morning person. 

"I'm going for a walk," she told him through a yawn, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Kojo heard the 'w' word, and his ears perked up. Lucy smiled. "Taking bubs with me." 

"Mkay," he slurred, opening his eyes for a brief moment. When he saw her face, he must have caught a glimpse of the shadows in her eyes because his eyebrows drew together with worry. "You okay?" 

That was debateable at the moment. She mustered up a smile regardless, and combed her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck.

"Yeah. Just going for a walk." 

She rolled out of bed, and picked up her discarded clothing off the floor. His eyes followed her every move around his bedroom as she dressed. He didn't trust her answer, and she didn't dare meet his gaze. She couldn't sort through this out loud with him. Not right now. Emotional whiplash for one was plenty.

"Let's go for a walk, bubs," she chirped from Tim's bedroom door, now clothed in last nights ensemble. His head tilted, making sure he had heard her right. "Walk! Let's go on a walk!" 

"He's a little slow to start in the morning," Tim teased, watching the interaction from his pillow. 

"Like father, like son." His mouth gaped open, and she smiled. "Day off today. Get some sleep." 

* * *

She found herself escaping to the dogpark down the road. She and Tim would take Kojo here some mornings when they were "unattached." It was always empty, the whole world seemingly asleep around them. Kojo would take free reign of the park, Tim would play fetch with him, and Lucy would sit on the bench and drink her coffee as she watched them. 

She found herself smiling at the memories as she sat on that same bench watching Kojo run around. No tennis balls, no coffee and no Tim. 

_No Tim_. 

She turned that over in her head. What would her life be like if she hadn't joined the academy to piss her parents off? Or if she had been placed at a different division? Would they still find each other in another life? Would they love each other? Would they hurt each other? Would they hurt other people because of each other? 

Emmett. Her mind drifted back to Emmett. It was that splintered voice that met her in the quiet moments. 

_"You love him."_

She did. She couldn't look him in the eye after he said it. She couldn't tell him that he was wrong. She couldn't lie. 

Emmett yelled. She cried. He cried. They broke. She left with a ringless finger, and a tired, guilty soul. 

_Ar roof!_

The sound of Kojo's bark pulled her back, and she looked up to see him barreling towards the entrance gate.

"Hey, bubba!" The familiar voice from behind made her jump. She turned to see Tim closing the gate with a bag of tennis balls in his hand. He smiled at her before squatting to the ground to pet Kojo.

Of course he knew she would be here.

"You couldn't resist, could you?" She asked, as he rounded the bench with Kojo at his feet. He took a seat next to her and placed a kiss in her hair. "You think I would get kidnapped?" 

He fixed her with a look. Right. Not a good joke. 

"No." He pulled at the draw strings of the bag, while Kojo shuffled and whined impatiently. "You forgot the most important part of a trip to the dog park." 

She feigned a gasp, and held a hand over her heart. "Well, where were my priorities at six o'clock this morning?" 

Tim pulled out a tennis ball and rotated it in his hands. Kojo stared at it, panting in anticipation. "I don't know." He drew his arm back, ready to throw. "Kojo wasn't one of them." 

He smirked, and released the ball from his grasp, launching it into the air. Once Kojo made a run for it, she shoved him in the shoulder. 

"Don't talk about me like that in front of him!" He laughed. She pouted. His arm went up and around her shoulder, pulling her into his side. "Besides, you always got the tennis balls. I got the coffee, and the dog." 

His lips pulled into a half grin at the admission of an earlier memory, not really sure how to recieve it. Somewhat happy, but mostly guilty. His fingers toyed with the sleeve of her t-shirt as he watched Kojo barrel back towards him. He dropped the ball at their feet, and Tim picked it up and launched it again. 

"I'm sorry for hurting you, Luce." Her body released a heavy sigh from beside him. "You deserved better." 

She twisted her head to look up at him, searching out his gaze. When she found it, she smiled. "You're already forgiven, Tim. We both hurt eachother." 

Hurt. The word of the day. She closed her eyes and let her brain toss it around beneath her skull while Kojo distracted Tim with another round of fetch.

"You went somewhere," he told her after throwing the ball back into the field. He coaxed her back in with a gentle hand on her cheek. She opened her eyes, and found him looking back. "Tell me about it." 

She rested her head against his shoulder, and held her pinky out for him. "You have to listen. You can't get mad." 

He rolled his eyes. She did this a lot. Breaking the heaviness with something light hearted. 

"Lucy, I can do those things without a pinky promise."

She didn't budge. He gave in. 

"You break the promise, I break your pinky." 

"Sounds reasonable," he quipped sarcastically. She stayed silent beside him. "Lucy..."

"I'm scared that I don't deserve this." The words came out quick, but he didn't miss a beat. Tim tensed under her. She could tell that he was about to interrupt her, and she held out her pinky finger to remind him. "I hurt him, Tim. Really, really hurt him, you know? And now, I just get to be happy?" 

Kojo came bounding back towards them with the ball in his mouth. This time dropping it, and finding a cool spot to lay down. 

"Case in point." She gestured dramatically down to Kojo breathing heavy at their feet. "The dog can't even play fetch without having to deal with my emotional crisis! He's too good for me. Hell, I can't even remember his tennis balls." 

"That was a joke, Lucy." 

"I know," she breathed out shakily. She could feel her throat tighten, and she had to fight back the sudden onset of tears. "I just, everything last night was perfect, and I woke up this morning next to you, wishing you had just abandoned me at the door. That's what I think I deserve!" 

His eyes squeezed shut and he pulled her in closer.

"False. You deserve love. You deserve happiness. I definitley don't deserve you, but please don't leave." She choked out a laugh. A tear drop hit his sleeve, followed by another. "We're human, Luce. None of us make it out of this world with a spotless record. We hurt people, people hurt us. None of that makes us any less deserving of love. Stop punishing yourself."

"Do you think he will forgive me?" 

"Who, Kojo? Of course!" Lucy rolled her eyes. He knew who she was talking about. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "Yes, somewhere down the road, Emmett will forgive you." 

"I hope you're right," she sighed. 

She really, truly did. 

A breeze whipped around them, drying her tears, and silence fell between them for a brief moment in time. She breathed in deeply, still somewhat shaky, and released it. Kojo followed it with a snore. 

"I think Kojo is ready to go back to bed," Tim joked, nudging him with the toe of his tennis shoe. The dog startled awake at the sudden touch, and turned back to glare at them through sleepy eyes. "We can't be morning people around here." 

She uncurled herself from his side, and stood up from the bench. He reached out his hands for her to help him up. He didn't get away with it without some light name calling. 

"Baby is what you are," she told him, as she pulled his body weight off the bench. He reached back and grabbed the leash for her, and she grabbed the tennis balls for him.

On their way back to his house, his hand in hers, and hers on the leash pulling Kojo along, she started believing that maybe she could let this happiness in. Maybe the cracks of her broken heart and spirit were exactly where this love was going to pour into. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think!


End file.
